GDT: Your New Jersey Devils Devils vs. The Toronto Maple Leafs

Blaming Brodeur for these last 2 losses is like blaming the deck chairs on the Titanic for its sinking. This offense is utterly inept. The power play is beyond a joke at this point. And trying to make guys like Bernier and Gionta play roles and minutes well beyond their abilities just doesn't work.

Agreed. The problem is we just don't have the talent. Not on the roster, not in the farm. And our first round picks have basically amounted to nothing (I.e. Tedenby, Josefson)

Don't think too much about it.
Lou knows this isn't the team that's gonna win it all. Instead of dealing with a bad trade, I feel he's looking for something in the offseason.
In his eyes there's no use in sacrificing our players when we can get a steal in the offseason

Keep telling yourself that. He will sit on his hands and pick up castoffs and a utility player on the cheap if there is one to be had.

Keep telling yourself that. He will sit on his hands and pick up castoffs and a utility player on the cheap if there is one to be had.

They can't really afford a bad year next year, on or off the ice. Off the ice they're already risking losing all the gains they've made in ticket selling the last couple of years with no playoffs. On the ice, you've got Marty and Elias coming towards the end of the line, they gotta at least try to make another run before we're having number-raising ceremonies for them and who knows what comes after Marty in net at that point.

Lou knows this isn't the team that's gonna win it all. Instead of dealing with a bad trade, I feel he's looking for something in the offseason.

In his eyes there's no use in sacrificing our players when we can get a steal in the offseason.

If we make the playoffs it's gonna be because we grinderd out some tough wins. I don't see the fight and talent in our players that would take us deep in the playoffs

I used to believe in this logic, but looking back since the lockout ended, Lou hasn't exactly adapted.

He's continuously grabbing old scraps and rusty parts, with a few exceptions, and hoping his coaches can polish them to something formidable.

He has done EPIC things for this hockey club, but the knee jerk reactions of retaining/overpaying Salvador and keeping Moose out of pure loyalty are dumbfounding.

Yes, losing The Homesick Baby has hurt this team and hurt Lou's approach but I'm getting tired of the "well he knew he couldn't get anything great without giving up the farm and knew he could wait" excuse after every trade deadline-free agency period.

Lastly, I'm done with Matt Shaw. Our power play is exactly the same as it was last year. They still don't shoot. They're still looking for the perfect shot. Even if its not his system that's causing this, he's the freaking power play coach that is not adjusting. Sure, this isn't our only problem, but when you have 2-two man advantages and CANNOT get a shot on goal, including a brutal turnover at the blue line at the end of the game...ugh

They can't really afford a bad year next year, on or off the ice. Off the ice they're already risking losing all the gains they've made in ticket selling the last couple of years with no playoffs. On the ice, you've got Marty and Elias coming towards the end of the line, they gotta at least try to make another run before we're having number-raising ceremonies for them and who knows what comes after Marty in net at that point.

Improvement comes after Marty. So tired of this 'win one more for Marty' business. Martin Brodeur is gone. The guy who's in net now is an average to below-average goalie. If Brodeur had a .920 SV%, the Devils wouldn't be in this mess.

I used to believe in this logic, but looking back since the lockout ended, Lou hasn't exactly adapted.

He's continuously grabbing old scraps and rusty parts, with a few exceptions, and hoping his coaches can polish them to something formidable.

He has done EPIC things for this hockey club, but the knee jerk reactions of retaining/overpaying Salvador and keeping Moose out of pure loyalty are dumbfounding.

Yes, losing The Homesick Baby has hurt this team and hurt Lou's approach but I'm getting tired of the "well he knew he couldn't get anything great without giving up the farm and knew he could wait" excuse after every trade deadline-free agency period.

Lastly, I'm done with Matt Shaw. Our power play is exactly the same as it was last year. They still don't shoot. They're still looking for the perfect shot. Even if its not his system that's causing this, he's the freaking power play coach that is not adjusting. Sure, this isn't our only problem, but when you have 2-two man advantages and CANNOT get a shot on goal, including a brutal turnover at the blue line at the end of the game...ugh

Hedberg was one of the best backup goalies in the league, and the power play gets nearly 10 shots more per 60 minutes than it did last year. I don't love the Hedberg signing - it could obviously go this way - but he was a .913 goalie for us over 2 years, that's very difficult to find. Salvador signing you'll find no disagreement from me on that one, but you can live with that. At least Salvador is piling up the minuses so maybe they will take notice, since it seems like that's what they based their decision to give him 3 years on.

Improvement comes after Marty. So tired of this 'win one more for Marty' business. Martin Brodeur is gone. The guy who's in net now is an average to below-average goalie. If Brodeur had a .920 SV%, the Devils wouldn't be in this mess.

I'm tired of you whining that Marty's a bad goalie and could have been replaced by the dreck on the FA market this year. There's literally a seven-goal difference between Marty being at a .908 save percentage and above .920, and you can't assume all seven goals come in one-goal losses either. He has a 2.2 GAA, it ain't like they're scoring a whole heck of a lot for him. Their AHL-level offense, and Moose's AHL-level goaltending has a lot more to do with the Devils being in the postion they are than Marty.

Not to mention his puckhandling provides an intangible you're not getting from any other goalie. Look how bad Moose was at 'trying' to imitate Marty (and how many goals THAT cost us) because having the goalie puckhandle like Marty does helps the system go.

Edited by NJDevs4978, 07 April 2013 - 09:45 AM.

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

The stretch with Marty out and Moose in is what got us into this mess and it's because of PDB and Lou's mismanagement. Kinkaid could have started a couple games but he only came in once as a reliever. Moose couldn't handle the pressure of starting game in and game out because that's not his role.

I'm tired of you whining that Marty's a bad goalie and could have been replaced by the dreck on the FA market this year. There's literally a seven-goal difference between Marty being at a .908 save percentage and above .920, and you can't assume all seven goals come in one-goal losses either. He has a 2.2 GAA, it ain't like they're scoring a whole heck of a lot for him. Their AHL-level offense, and Moose's AHL-level goaltending has a lot more to do with the Devils being in the postion they are than Marty.

Not to mention his puckhandling provides an intangible you're not getting from any other goalie. Look how bad Moose was at 'trying' to imitate Marty (and how many goals THAT cost us) because having the goalie puckhandle like Marty does helps the system go.

I don't think Brodeur could have been replaced on the free agent market, I never said that. I just think this idea of 'win one for Marty' and 'we have to put together a team around Marty' is silly. Brodeur doesn't look like he's going to break .910 this year, he didn't last year, and he didn't the year before that. He had a very good playoffs, not great, but very good. He's at best, average.

And plenty of Brodeur's puckhandling mistakes have ended up in the net this year.

Hedberg is fine as a backup if say Carey Price was your starter, except in this case with the Devils when Hedberg is 40 and you have a 41 yr old in Brodeur who still thinks he is in his prime and is getting hurt every single year now it seems and missing huge chunks of time and after a brief infusion of old glory in the playoffs, has returned to giving up soft goals. I am convinced however that Brodeur is not 100 percent and came book sooner than he should because Hedberg was failing in spectacular fashion with the season slipping away.

Either one or the other cannot be back next year or we are in trouble and the logical one to go is Hedberg. I don't care how great a high-fiver Hedberg is in the locker room. Lou needs to make some tough choices in the offseason and the goalie situation will be one. If it is not addressed along with problems at forward, we'll be sacrificing a potential top 10-15 pick next year if not even worse.

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Bill Simmons: "The Bruins are like Fredo -- they're dead to me as long as the owner is alive."

but moose was forced to play that role and try to attempt to fill shoes that just were not his.. moose caught a lot of sh!t for that bad stretch, and yes alot of his play was not good, and i too believe management should take most of the blame because there were others that could have gotten a chance... but look at play now theres no moose to blame they still haven't won a game in what 7 games?..

Hedberg is fine as a backup if say Carey Price was your starter, except in this case with the Devils when Hedberg is 40 and you have a 41 yr old in Brodeur who still thinks he is in his prime and is getting hurt every single year now it seems and missing huge chunks of time and after a brief infusion of old glory in the playoffs, has returned to giving up soft goals. I am convinced however that Brodeur is not 100 percent and came book sooner than he should because Hedberg was failing in spectacular fashion with the season slipping away.

Either one or the other cannot be back next year or we are in trouble and the logical one to go is Hedberg. I don't care how great a high-fiver Hedberg is in the locker room. Lou needs to make some tough choices in the offseason and the goalie situation will be one. If it is not addressed along with problems at forward, we'll be sacrificing a potential top 10-15 pick next year if not even worse.

I can honestly not see him trading either one of them.. and if he by chance does actually do something for once theres no way he would dump marty not a chance.. he will play next year and then call it quits.

well.. my cousin's team got their ass handed to them by Michigan Teir I girls in quarter finals of Nationals.

So is hockey season done for me now then?

I'm at a loss with the Devils - can't see enough to make any sort of call beyond -- beyond I have no idea...

What the hell is wrong with them? It's not lack of skill or goal tending or scorers. Just be better -- you can't be better? -- you're useless. Feeling like the losers they are isn't going to change anything. It's hard to not feel like ^7^ Why try to motivate them - they aren't getting it done. There is no magic word, no enlightening drill or crude insult or plain statement of fact that will change anything. They won't get it done. They won't - end of story. I can't imagine anyone making anything happen there. it is quite impressive the way they can under-perform while leaving nothing really solid to fix. It's like my daughter "I'm doing my best" whine whine whine even if it is in even tones seemingly accepting full responsibility.

Don't they get it? There's an answer for everything -- Who wants an answer? I know I don't want. I want action. I want them to get it done. It's far more difficult to pull off this sh!t end result after sh!t end result than it is to just win and make the playoffs by a thread. That's what I don't understand. They accomplish the impossible -- but in the completely wrong direction? what the fvck? I'm not interested any more. It's not anger -- it's just like a stupid joke. it's meaningless, and pointless and a waste of my time -- unless they feel like doing SOMETHING for me to comment on besides playing decent hockey and coming up short - it's not worth my even thinking about them.

Improvement comes after Marty. So tired of this 'win one more for Marty' business. Martin Brodeur is gone. The guy who's in net now is an average to below-average goalie. If Brodeur had a .920 SV%, the Devils wouldn't be in this mess.

Hedberg was one of the best backup goalies in the league, and the power play gets nearly 10 shots more per 60 minutes than it did last year. I don't love the Hedberg signing - it could obviously go this way - but he was a .913 goalie for us over 2 years, that's very difficult to find. Salvador signing you'll find no disagreement from me on that one, but you can live with that. At least Salvador is piling up the minuses so maybe they will take notice, since it seems like that's what they based their decision to give him 3 years on.

we'll forever disagree with this but the amount of shots doesnt mean anything on a PP, you can take 5 very bad shots that has no chances of going in during a PP or you can score off your one and only chance cause you made a great play. Or obviously its not impossible that our extra shots from this year would be great chances. Thats what stats are not telling you. Stop looking at the stats look at them play for the love of god. Our PP is NOT GOOD, it's pretty damn obvious by looking at them play.

plus i dont know if missed shots counts in your stats but more often than not were missing the net and the puck is out of the zone. That doesnt help.

191 shots in 221 PP minutes this year (almost exactly half the time of last year)

That's about a 30-shot difference in the same # of minutes. Considering they already have about as much 5-on-3 time (10:00 this year to 10:20 all of last year) as they did the entire season last year obviously the shot number's going to be slightly skewed for that reason alone. Even not taking that into account the difference is more like 4 shots per 60 minutes, not 10.

In basically every game you should get around six minutes of PP time. So that's .4 shots extra on the PP per game, no wonder even an incremental gain is not noticeable (and an incremental gain aided by extra 5-on-3 time) lol.

And yes, shot quality is certainly not an indicator of success...just take a look at any David Clarkson 'lowlight' reel for proof of that.

Edited by NJDevs4978, 07 April 2013 - 01:51 PM.

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

we'll forever disagree with this but the amount of shots doesnt mean anything on a PP, you can take 5 very bad shots that has no chances of going in during a PP or you can score off your one and only chance cause you made a great play. Or obviously its not impossible that our extra shots from this year would be great chances. Thats what stats are not telling you.

Amount of shots don't mean everything, but they certainly mean something. Shot quality does vary somewhat, but not so much that looking at shot counts is meaningless. Generally speaking, shooting 5 times on your PP is going to get you more goals than shooting 1 time on your PP. Shots lead to goals.

Stop looking at the stats look at them play for the love of god. Our PP is NOT GOOD, it's pretty damn obvious by looking at them play.

This part of your post is unnecessary and can only lead to more petty arguments. I'm so sick of the go-to diss around here being "You must not even watch the games!" None of us would be here if we didn't watch the team play. Everyone watches the same games, we just all see them differently. Please try to accept this and stop telling people to watch the team play.